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Libya
Attained sovereignty under UN supervision following post-WWII British and French temporary military administrations.
- Independence
- December 24, 1951
- Before
- British- and French-administered Libya (former Italian colony)
- Metropole
- Italy / UN
- Leader
- King Idris I
- Transition
- UN Resolution
- Movement
- Senussi-led resistance to Italy; Cyrenaican and Tripolitanian nationalist parties, notably the National Congress Party of Tripolitania
“Libya, comprising Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and the Fezzan, shall be constituted an independent and sovereign State.”
— United Nations General Assembly, November 21, 1949
Italian Conquest and Resistance, 1911–1931
Italy invaded the Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in 1911, and the Ottomans ceded them in 1912. Resistance, strongest in Cyrenaica and closely associated with the Senussi religious order, continued for two decades, led above all by Omar Mukhtar. Italy crushed it by deporting much of Cyrenaica's population to concentration camps, where tens of thousands died, and by fencing the Egyptian border. Mukhtar was captured on September 11, 1931 and hanged at Suluq on September 16.
Settlement, War and Allied Administration
Under Fascism Libya became a settler colony: the Italian population reached about 108,000 at the 1939 census, some 20,000 farmers having been brought over by Governor Italo Balbo in 1938 alone to settle new agricultural villages. After the Axis defeat in North Africa in 1943, Britain administered Tripolitania and Cyrenaica while France held the Fezzan. The powers could not agree on Libya's future, and the Bevin–Sforza plan of May 1949 to divide it into British, Italian and French trusteeships, fiercely opposed within Libya, failed to pass the UN General Assembly.
Independence Through the United Nations
On November 21, 1949, UN General Assembly Resolution 289 (IV) recommended that Libya become an independent and sovereign state no later than January 1, 1952. Under UN Commissioner Adrian Pelt, a National Assembly adopted a federal constitution on October 7, 1951, and on December 24, 1951, Idris al-Senussi, already Emir of Cyrenaica, proclaimed the independence of the United Kingdom of Libya in Benghazi. Libya is often described as the first state to achieve independence through the United Nations.
Chronology
- October 1911 — Italy invades Ottoman Tripolitania and Cyrenaica
- October 18, 1912 — Treaty of Ouchy: the Ottoman Empire withdraws from Libya
- September 16, 1931 — Resistance leader Omar Mukhtar hanged by Italy at Suluq
- 1943 — British and French military administrations established
- November 21, 1949 — UN General Assembly Resolution 289 (IV) provides for independence
- October 7, 1951 — National Assembly adopts the federal constitution
- December 24, 1951 — King Idris I proclaims independence
Aftermath
Libya began independence as one of the world's poorest states, dependent on foreign aid and on rents from British and American military bases, including Wheelus Air Base. Oil was discovered in commercial quantities in 1959 and transformed the economy, and in 1963 the federal system gave way to a unitary state. On September 1, 1969, army officers led by Muammar Gaddafi overthrew King Idris, who was in Turkey for medical treatment, in a bloodless coup.
Legacy
Libya's UN-guided independence showed how the post-war international order could shape decolonisation, though the federal monarchy disappointed nationalists who wanted a unitary state. The memory of the anti-Italian resistance, and of Omar Mukhtar in particular, remains central to Libyan national identity and has been invoked by successive regimes and their opponents.